The Waiting Disease

There is a disease that afflicts querying authors.

No! Pray tell, it is not what you think it is. We have patience in abundance. Mayhap we have more patience than a professional turtle racer! We are writers. We write tremendous things and then we revise said tremendous things, and when all is said and done we do things tremendously. Some of us are slow, some of us are quick, but to the cosmic singularity it's all very relative.

PRITHEE, we finish said tremendous thing (tremendous thing being our manuscript), and we have polished and spit polished and car-gloss polished and we've just generally polished the shit out of it enough to see our reflections. We query! Oh boy, do we query. We query and send out partials and fulls and wait with bated breath.

PERCHANCE, the disease strikes!

After four months, you begin to exhibit symptoms that include irritability and fitful doubts of skill. At seven, the disease has a full grasp on you, and it roars only this into your buzzing head;

WHAT AM I DOING WRONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

With occasional variants of this nature;

SHOULD I WRITE ANOTHER BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK BECAUSE MY FIRSTTTTTTTTT IS SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTT?


There is no known cure, or cause, save for a 'WELL DONE LET'S PUBLISH YOUR BOOK' phrase from an agent that you love, not just because they are an agent that will accept your crap and turn it shiny, but because they are a real person and they are tea enthusiasts like you are and they watch Hitchcock movies like you, and they really like your book! They think it is simply rad.


Ahhh, the waiting will kill you. Don't give up.



I have a purikura application on my iphone.
This is dangerous territory.

FOR INSTANCE:



this will be my author picture on the back of the book.